086: Félicia Atkinson - The healing
Though it's not officially the case, there's not a chance that you can consider September on the west coast of Scotland as still being a part of Summer. Even with the weather being as bad as it has been this Summer, it still feels like a marker-line has been drawn in the sand, that a new season has quietly bloomed in a gloomy shade on grey, dense and unilluminated.
Today is particularly colourless, the sky a washed-out shade of grey, a damp backdrop to the leaves in their turning. Within this heavy new atmosphere, 'The healing' by the French musician Félicia Atkinson fits like a hand into a glove, sombre and eerily beautiful.
It's also the opening song to a new seven-song collection called Space As An Instrument; space in terms of the cosmos rather than the gaps we find in the in between. All of the songs were recorded on Atkinson’s phone, which was placed near her as she played, allowing the sounds and atmosphere of the room feed into the work, adding a deeply compelling humanity to otherwise mysterious landscapes.
In its hushed and earthy tones, 'The healing' feels particularly captivating, the gentle piano keys cloaked in the sound of bird song, muffled movement; creaks and crinkles of noise beamed in from the ether, a message from somewhere else, perhaps, or just the noise of things, if you choose not to believe.
Atkinson says her music exists “on the verge of understanding and not understanding,” and this feels indicative of such sentiments - and a beautiful introduction to what promises to be a very special piece of work.
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three / six / five is a daily music-sharing project from gold flake paint; read more about the idea here
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